🚀 go-pugleaf

that an offense
against it will take place. Law anticipates transgression as much as
license; but law provides a _check_ upon offenses and license provides
an _incitement_ to them. "The law was not made for a righteous man,
but for the lawless and disobedient." Have not murder and stealing
always existed? Are they not likely to exist in spite of laws against
them, so long as human nature remains so frail? Then why not license
_them_ in order to keep _them_ under control? It is perfectly apparent
to all that to license murder and stealing; would be the surest way of
allowing them to get quickly beyond control. "But you cannot make men
moral by act of parliament, and it is foolish to try; to put a man in
jail will not change him from a thief into an honest man." "But," you
reply, "we do not punish men for stealing and for murder for their own
good, but for the good of the community at large." Certainly. Then
what becomes of the argument that because men will not become pure by
act of parliament they are to be allowed to commit their depredations
unmolested? The primary object of law is not reformatory but
protective,--for the victims of lawlessness.

Our great Law-Giver, Jesus Christ, admitted a certain necessity of
evil, but He did not say, "therefore license it, to keep it within
bounds." He said, "It _must needs be_ that offenses c